


The Merits of a Drunk Text

by Anonymous



Category: Hey Arnold!
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-05
Updated: 2015-04-05
Packaged: 2018-03-21 07:39:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3683733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A drunk text brings Helga closer to Arnold than she could have ever imagined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Merits of a Drunk Text

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Texts from Last Night Challenge. My prompt was: (407) If I win the lottery I'm going to hire someone to skywrite "FUCKTARD" over his house. That much anger.

"Helga. It’s time to get up."

She opened her eyes blearily to see Arnold looking down at her. "Ar-Arnold? Wh-what are you doing at my house?" This was the stuff of her dreams, except for the raging headache she had. Had she drooled in her sleep? She’d be more embarrassed if not for the headache.

Arnold rolled his eyes. "Helga, you're at the boarding house."

"WHAT?!" Helga shot up from the bed she was on, narrowly missing his head. Her hand went to her forehead, damn, her head was killing her. "Criminy-"

Arnold shook his head, looking too damned calm for the situation. "As far as your parents know, you're at Phoebe's."

“WHAT? How-“

“Gerald told her and she called your father, I suppose” Arnold said, shrugging off her indignant look. “Are you hungry?”

Her stomach took the opportune time to growl. Arnold laughed, not quailing at the glare she gave him. “That’s beside the point, football head. What happened?”

He raised his hands. “I should be asking you that, Helga.”

“What do you mean?”

He reached into his pocket for his cellphone, pressed a few buttons, and showed it to her.

“If I win the lottery I'm going to hire someone to skywrite "FUCKTARD" over his house. That much anger.”

Helga’s head pounded terribly. “I-I sent that?”

Arnold nodded. “I was with Gerald when I got that last night. You didn’t reply to my text asking you where you were, and Stinky said that he saw you going into that seedy bar by the docks… Helga, what were you doing there? It was just a good thing that everyone there seemed to know not to take advantage of you.”

Helga grimaced. That was not something she wanted Arnold, football head that still made starring roles in her dreams, to know. Still, she knew he wouldn’t let it go and she knew that she couldn’t stand much of Arnold’s curiosity once he got hold of something he wanted to know about. “I… I’m kind of a regular there, football head.”

Arnold’s eyebrows rose. “A regular?! Helga, you’re still not of age!”

She would roll her eyes if her head wasn’t pounding fit to kill her. As if that would stop her, though it wasn’t what he thought it was. “Criminy, Arnold, my head hurts.”

He instantly looked contrite as he handed her an aspirin and a glass of water from the dresser next to the bed. “Here, maybe this will help.”

She sighed before downing the medicine and the water. “Thanks.” It wasn’t a surprise at all that Arnold knew his hangover cures, though she doubted he’d ever gotten drunk himself. Maybe it was part of helping out at the boarding house…? 

“You’re welcome.” He looked torn. “Helga…”

She decided to put him out of his misery. “Spit it out, whatever you want to ask. Not promising I’ll answer, though.”

“All right,” he said calmly. “Helga, did something happen with Trey?”

Right, she thought dully. Her boyfriend of a month. Rather, her ex-boyfriend as of yesterday before she decided to get shit-raising drunk. “What makes you say that?”

He looked fairly guilty. “Well, Gerald and I might have run into him after your text came…”

She still felt like pounding the guy. Hell, she should. It wasn’t like her to not beat up a guy who screwed her over. “He told you?”

“Not really,” he said slowly.

“Spit it out, Arnold.”

He sighed. “He and his friends entered the arcade while Gerald and I were trying to beat the high score on one of the machines. He was… well, Helga, he was talking about you.”

“About how much of a frigid bitch I was?”

He looked angry. “Yeah, and that he’d told you that.”

She really was going to show Trey Old Betsy and the Five Avengers as soon as her hangover let up a little. “Okay, that’s not explaining why you look like you ran over a kitten. Spill.”

“I… I punched him, Helga.”

“What?” She jumped off the bed, wincing at the sudden burst of pain in her head.

“He shouldn’t have said that about you, Helga” he said firmly, his hand landing on her shoulder. “Sit down, you might fall down.”

“I won’t,” she said, though she did sit down on the bed. “I’m going to pound him.” The way she should have last night, instead of getting drunk at the seedy pub by the dock where she worked, though Arnold didn’t know that was why everyone there knew her. Let him think whatever he wanted.

He had a faint smile on his face though he tried to look disapproving. Her eyes zoomed in on his right hand, which was bruised. “Geez, football head, you must not know how to throw a punch.”

He rolled his eyes. “Considering I got thrown out of the arcade and he went out cold after I did it, I think I do know, Helga.”

She was impressed. “I’m surprised- you’re so peaceful and all.” But this was Arnold. He tended to pull out the stops when others would just walk away. It was part of why she loved him. At least she wasn’t pulling out her pink notebook right now to write him a sonnet or two, she thought wryly. 

“You’re my friend, Helga. I’m not about to let some guy talk badly about my friends.”

She hoped she didn’t let her disappointment show on her face. Friend. She knew why Trey had broken up with her – she knew that he felt she didn’t care as much as he did, not to mention that she wouldn’t put out for him. It just didn’t feel right, she had said. Well, she wasn’t going to tell him that it would never feel right since he wasn’t Arnold, but at least now she wouldn’t have to tell him at all. Friend. She felt punched in the gut, though she fully planned on making Trey feel much worse before the day was over.

“Thanks, Arnold.” She stood up again and stretched, steadier than before. The aspirin was working. “What did Geraldo do when you punched him?”

“Cheer me on, even when we got thrown out” he said wryly. “While waiting for your reply, we ran into Stinky and you know what happened.” He shrugged. “I didn’t think you wanted your parents asking questions so I asked Gerald to tell Phoebe to cover for you then we brought you here.”

She shook her head at Arnold’s thoughtfulness, though she doubted Miriam and Big Bob would care as long as no one they knew saw her drunk. Hell, Miriam got drunk everyday with her ‘smoothies’, so she was one to talk.

“So, breakfast?”

“Sure, thanks” she said. “Arnold-“

“Don’t waste your money on skywriting for him,” Arnold said lightly. “That’s something I wasn’t able to text last night.”

“Yeah,” Helga said slowly, cracking her knuckles. “Skywriting’s too classy for the likes of him. I’ll just pound him and take the money for myself.”

“Good idea,” he said easily. “Do you want anything particularly?”

“Nah, I’ll eat anything.”

“Okay,” he said. “Grandma and Grandpa are out, but I can rustle up some eggs at least.”

“Hey, Arnold?”

“Yeah?”

“Why were you so mad at Trey? I mean, Wolfgang says worse stuff about all of us anyway and all-“

She could see the anger in his eyes. “Helga, Trey was wrong. And if you did have troubles, he had no business talking about it like that, in a public place no less.”

She reminded herself not to swoon. “Wrong in what way?” 

He looked earnestly at her. “Helga, you’re one of the most passionate people I know.”

My passion’s generally because of you, she thought, not that you’d ever know it. 

“Did you say something, Helga?”

“Nothing,” she said quickly, hitting her head with a fist and wincing. Not one of her better moves.

A silence settled over them for a few minutes, with Arnold cooking eggs in a pan and Helga thinking about all the ways she could beat up Trey when she found him. At least he hadn’t hit Arnold back, though what a wuss to go down after one punch. She was definitely better off without him.

“Helga,” Arnold said suddenly. “I’m glad you two aren’t together anymore.”

“R-Really?” She knew well enough that Phoebe didn’t like Trey, for all that he was decent enough until, well, they kept on fighting, This was a surprise. She stamped down any hopeful feelings. “Why:”

“He didn’t deserve you,” Arnold said, setting down a plate of eggs in front of her. “I always wondered why you two got together.”

That was a can of worms, Helga thought, and certainly not something she wanted to get into with Arnold of all people. “Let’s just say I wanted to see what it was like.” That was partly the truth. She had wanted to see what it was like to be with someone who actually wanted her, instead of only hoping for someone she wanted to notice her in the ‘like-like’ way, not that she’d use that term without her soul curling up in shame. 

“Dating?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.”

An awkward silence descended upon them as they ate their eggs. After scarfing the last bits down, Helga stood. It was time to get home, get cleaned up, then find the asshole. She told him so. He nodded as he walked her to the door. 

“Helga?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s not the right time, but if you ever want to see what it’s like again…”

“Yeah?”

He smiled. “Let me know.”

She knew she was grinning stupidly as she walked down the street. I might be thinking too much, she thought to herself, but drunk texts aren’t all bad.


End file.
